Stef's Blog - a native London Southlander and unrepentant 'Conspiraloon™' who doesn't trust anyone, not even himself. Sometimes I take pictures. I also enjoy swearing immensely and think much faster than I can type, so each post comes guaranteed to include at last one confusing typo. OK?

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Blowback

I've already linked to this video by way of a comment under an earlier post but this speech given by George Galloway earlier in the month, whilst the assault on Gaza was in full swing, has been bugging me since I first saw it

The punchline, where George threatens Britain with a horde of 'radicalised' British Muslims, comes about 4:20 in

47 comments:

Galloway is perhaps one of the most dangerous fucks going. 99.8% radical truthiness, all slapped together with 0.2% bullshit that seamlessly holds together official doctrine while pretending to offer a little in the way of dissent.

Well, I have had some "customers" since then, just not on a level required to make a living from it. Usually just friends needing a system set-up or some troubleshooting done.

Even though I should probably have charged more, my average bill was £10 an hour, well below the typical competitors (such as DSGi, who charge multiple times that just for copying your data to another computer).

Chain stores get business simply because they're there and they spend a fair old slab of their margin on advertising

Setting up folks PCs is a tough game though and potentially very time consuming. I'm often surprised at just how much shit non technical users end up amassing on their desktops. There are awful lot of fucked up windows installations out there...

I suppose you're correct. I did get offered several times the original agreed amount after spending a few hours on a new gaming PC build for a civil engineer last year. The bloke did install the operating system himself though.

In other words, for about an evening's worth of my time and a friendly chat with the gentleman and his other half, I earned what would have taken 40 hours work at the ol' desk job.

Unfortunately most of the people I know can't afford much, and I lack the funds for an advertising campaign.

Most people in my extended family ran small cafes from the year dot. I grew up living over one. Margins were tight, the hours long and customers would howl if you ever had to put so much as a couple of pence on the price of a cup of tea or coffee

And then, about ten, fifteen years ago the market changed. Thanks mostly to marketing, people were happy to pay double or triple what they used to pay for a cup of coffee, provided you mixed plenty of bullshit in with it

And where did all that extra margin go? Not to the coffee producers or the people who worked in the shops. One way or another most of it fetched up with the money lenders - either to service the coffee chains' debts or in property costs, which were going through the roof

The same has happened to plenty of other businesses

And now the whole thing looks like it might unravel

The big UK retail chains which drove so many independents out of business are saddled with crippling debts which they no longer have any hope of repaying and many of them are going to fold

It would be nice to think that, once property costs have fallen back to a sane level, that independents might move into that empty retail space once the dust has settled

Too early to say which way things will go yet. People will be buying less stuff in general, that's for sure

The problem with Galloway, and it's not a new one with him or others of his ilk, is that if the analysis of whatever issue is wrong, then the conclusions to which that analysis leads are also wrong.

With regard to the massacre in Gaza, Galloway has suggested that the actions of the illegal Israeli apartheid State will radicalise British Muslims and that this will result in mythical Islamist terrorism on the streets of London.

Well, the fact of the matter is that the holocaust in Gaza, along with the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, and various other geopolitical issues, is definitely affecting people's political outlooks, but this isn't specific to Muslims. Further, to suggest that it is solely Muslims who abhor and detest Imperialist mass murder through the ages is - at best - utterly disingenuous and - at worst - an outright lie.

The proof of this? Recall the millions on the streets in various protests around the U.K. against the invasions of Iraq, Afghanistan and Gaza. Were they exclusively Muslim, or were the majority non-Muslim?

Galloway himself exemplifies this. He's not a Muslim and he repeatedly gets more worked up than most, as demonstrated by his rhetoric. So why then does then does he repeatedly keep fingering Muslims in his bombastic rhetoric as the only humans disgusted by U.S., U.K., or Israeli barbarism?

More than fair enough, ant.The blowback position is indefensible. However I (like to?) think there might be a baby, however flawed, in that murky bath water.When he sticks to his knitting, he can be OK.

What is going on in Iraq and Afghanistan is not 'blowback' as it is defined by Gorgeous George et al

It's still 'blowback' alright but a different kind

And, yes, US/UK/Israeli forces haven't been above putting a headdress on and committing a few atrocities in the past, just to keep the pot boiling, and I am unaware of any reason why they won't have continued to do so through to the present day

Just because a man is in a car when it blows up doesn't always mean he knew his car was going to blow up

Hmm, guy gets summoned to US base in Iraq for "questioning" or some such. Guy gets told to report to official building, police station or something. Guy notices car driving strangely (or breaks down) after leaving base. Guy worried about car doesnt make it to destination. Car explodes. Guy not marked down in the statistics book as +1 fanatical suicide car bomber. Inconveniently not dead guy tells press instead.

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